After the Storm
by TheSilentRainbow
Summary: While wandering through an old book store, friends Bob and Kate happen upon an old locked book. Before they know it, the Sakura cards are loose in their world and the newest Guardian wants them to get on with the captures before horrible things happen.
1. Billy's Prologue

Opening Notes

The working title for this story is "Billy's Suffixes" because each chapter is titled "Billy -" This is something you will understand at a later time. The true title is what it is listed under: "After the Storm" which is another thing you will come to understand later in the story. Please, bear with my strangeness for a chapter or two.

All of the characters, with one exception, are based on real people. I have, to the best of my ability, tried to keep all the interactions between characters as realistic and lifelike as possible. I will be the first to admit that my dialogues tend to get very dry, and keeping to real-person-reactions helps me avoid that. Many of my conversations influence those in the story directly, and I chose to leave them mostly uncensored. This is most of the reason this story is rated as highly as it is. There is no sex, so if that is what you came to see, please return the way you entered.

And now that all of that is out of the way, thank you for reading this far and please continue on to the real prologue.

Billy's Prologue

Kate sat at the kitchen table, her short bob of hair falling into her young face as she shuffled the red and gold cards in front of her. Bob, his round frame standing by the stove as he cooked, was watching from the corner of his eye.

"You've been doing that a lot lately," he said slowly as Kate cut the cards.

The girl at the table was counting through the deck now, picking out cards and placing them in a particular circle. "Yeah, well, I did a few readings a while ago, but I kept getting the same couple of cards, no matter which spread I did or what I was asking about. The only difference was when I asked specifically about Patrick and me."

Bob didn't say anything to that. He was skeptical at best of things like tarot readings, and when you threw in the fact that Kate was using a fictional deck of cards, he found the practice to be incredibly sketchy. But Kate ignored his silence and began to flip over cards now that she had laid them all out.

"Look at this," she was saying as Bob stirred his sauce. "The Twin is upside down in the problem position. This one confuses me, because it's saying that my problem is that I'm not working cooperatively with someone, and that it's bringing me bad luck. The Twin usually represents you or Caryn in a spread. But I wasn't asking anything that should involve the two of you."

Bob mumbled wordlessly as Kate continued. "But the second card, the cause of the problem, is The Dream. This one means that our sixth sense is good, and we can get information from premonitions and dreams. The third card, which represents past problems that relate to the current one, is the Fly. It's upside down, so that means the meaning behind it reversed. Normally it means a chance at growth or glory, but reversed it signifies stagnation and lack of progress. The next card, the Cloud, is surrounding circumstances. But this card means that my ability to make wise decisions is questioned, and that I need to relax. I'm uptight, and as long as I remain optimistic and make the right choices, I'll feel more at ease."

"You know, at risk of sounding rude, I've gotta ask you why you think this interests me." Bob began to drain the water from his spaghetti as he spoke.

"Because it involves you somehow," Kate replied as she studied the cards, "and I think you should know that."

There was no hiding the blatantly skeptical tone. "Really."

"This one, The Little, is the solution to the problem. It's a small but meaningful transformation. Taking small steps will help alleviate the anxiety from The Cloud."

"Okay…."

"The keyword, or the important thing to remember, that's The Glow. It's a symbol of good luck, signs that our fortune is improving. And after that, the obstacle is The Thunder. So you have to be careful of controlling your emotions and making sure you stay true to yourself. The future of the problem is nothing bad, which is good. The Dark means that our energy is running low, so we need to take a break and just let things flow. But it also means we need to save our energy for the next step."

Bob was growing frustrated as he placed the pasta and meatballs on the table with the sauce he had just concocted. "Okay, seriously. Why do you keep dragging me into this reading? I thought you said you hadn't asked anything about me."

"I didn't, and I'm not dragging you in. All of these cards can represent more than just me, especially someone that I'm very close to and work extensively with. I hardly see Caryn any more unless it's with you. Patrick is always represented by The Sweet or The Sand. Corey rarely factors into any of my readings. That leaves you."

"Okay, fine, whatever. But how can you pick out which cards target who specifically?"

"They each have their own connotation. It's hard to describe, and it's not like you'll believe me anyway."

"Continue, then."

"This one here…" Kate forged on without another comment, "The Snow is in the end result position. It's a new beginning, a change in attitude. That's good, it means that we're wrapping up whatever it was and moving on to something different. "

"So what's that last card?" Bob asked, more for Kate's benefit than his own.

"This is what other people see the problem as: The Windy, a time of change and activity. It's a good chance to get information, but be careful we don't hurt anyone."

"And all this has to do with me how?"

"I don't know," Kate said, staring at the cards. "I really don't know. I mean, I could be reading them wrong, it's happened before. But even if I am, and it's something completely other, this is the strangest spread I've ever encountered."

There was silence for a minute as Kate continued to contemplate the cards laid out before her and Bob just watched. "Well," He said suddenly, reaching for the pasta spoon, "I'm hungry and this food won't stay warm forever."


	2. 1 Billy is Incredulous

Chapter 1

The book store they stood in had a closed-in, dusty sort of feel to it. Not that that was a bad thing, the best used book stores were all like that. Bob immediately began to browse the nearest shelf while Kate wandered slowly around, finding all the sections and deciding which ones deserved her wallet's priority.

They had found the store on a previous journey out that way, tucked into a tiny little corner of the strip with a dimly glowing neon sign that declared it as "open." There was no one behind the counter when they entered, the string of bells on the door jangling discordantly into the musty silence of the one-room store.

Bob and Kate met in the foreign section, both of them with a stack of books in their arms that they set down as they perused the shelves before them.

"Hey, Bob," Kate said quietly after a few minutes. She pulled a book from the shelf and showed it to him. It was a pale pink, though you could barely tell through the layers of dust on it. On the front cover was an intricately patterned circle with a star at the center and a sun and moon to either side. "Look at this." There was a lock on it, a tiny golden thing that resembled something on a diary.

"Nifty," Bob replied, taking the book and examining it. "Looks like a magic circle, doesn't it?"

Kate began fishing around in her bag. "Yeah, kind of."

"Shame we don't have a key."

"Oh yeah," Kate replied, pulling out a knitting needle from the sock she had been working on. "Real shame, that."

Bob watched as Kate took the book and examined the lock thoroughly. "What are you doing?" he asked with a hint of amusement in his voice that said he knew _exactly_ what she was doing.

"This looks like it works like the locks on my sisters' old diaries. I used to pick them for fun and read their stuff. It was never very interesting, though." Kate carefully poked the needle into the lock and began to fish around.

"You know, I'm pretty sure we'll get in trouble if the owner finds you picking the locks on his books."

"Oh, come on. I'm probably going to buy it anyway, and I doubt they have the key to it here." Kate twirled the needle around a bit more and suddenly, there was a click as the lock popped open neatly. "There, see? And not a scratch on it."

"Right, right. So what is it? You can read the devil language, right?"

Kate examined the covers one last time, noting the scrawling Japanese kanji decorating it. "Yeah, kind of. I don't always know what they mean, though. However, you do the honors."

She held the book out with a small grin, and Bob stared at it for a second before turning the cover over. Inside, the book was hollowed out and there sat what appeared to be a deck of cards. But before either of them could say anything the book began vibrating, a low hum that filled their ears as a light began to emanate from the book in their hands. A breeze picked up as the light grew brighter and the cards began to move. The wind swirled around them more and more violently as the cards were swept up out of the book and disappeared into the blinding light around them.

And then, suddenly, it all stopped.

Kate and Bob were left squinting in the dimness of the shop, the book still clutched in their shaking hands.

"What… _was_ that?" Kate asked, blinking rapidly.

"Better question: what is _that_?" Bob was staring at a small something that was sitting on the book.

"It's… is that…?"

"It's a turtle."

"I'm not a turtle," said the thing morosely. It had a tiny voice, but they could hear the horrible depression that laced it clearly. "I'm a guardian of the cards."

"What cards?" Bob asked, resisting the urge to poke it with difficulty.

"The Sakura Cards."

Kate stared. "But I thought Kero and Yue were the guardians of the cards."

"They preferred not to lose another master, and so Sakura brought their existence to an end."

"So, she made you instead?" Bob let go of the book and picked up the small creature to examine it better. It was a turtle, a small one about the size of his palm. On its shell, however, was a pair of lizard-like wings that ended in a three-fingered hand. They folded neatly against his shell, their dappled pattern blending in easily.

The turtle heaved a sigh that was laden with the weight of the world, and began to explain. "No, YOU made me. The two of you, I guess," it amended with anguish. "Sakura worked it so that whoever opened the book would create two new guardians from within themselves."

"So you're a projection of our combined inner thoughts?" Kate sounded perplexed.

"No. I'm more like a brainchild. You dreamed me up subconsciously, and now I've come into being."

Bob looked at Kate over the turtle's head. "Man, we are some horrible people to come up with something this depressed."

"My life is one of suffering, yes," the turtle conceded.

"What's your name?" Kate asked.

"Billy."

There was silence as Kate and Bob both digested this.

"Sooo… where's the other guardian?" Bob asked after a while, trying to break the ice.

"He hasn't been created yet."

Kate blinked. "Oh. So…"

"So why don't you go find some Sakura cards before they do horrible things to the people you love?" Billy said, flexing his wings and flying up to land on Kate's shoulder.

"Um, don't we need to make a pact or whatever?" Kate was looking at the empty book. "I mean, we can't seal them unless we have a staff, can we?"

"Oh, right. Well then. Repeat after me, both of you."

They repeated his incantation intrepidly, neither of them sure if this was a dream or not. It was possible, they'd both had some pretty messed up dreams in the past. "Cards made by Sakura, released into the world, we seek to capture thee once more." The light from the book began again, with the wind picking up faster and even more violently than before as they both recited. "Hear our plea and lend us your power!"

The book flew from their hands, falling to the floor with a soft thump. Out of it rose a staff, about as tall as they were, topped with a sun-and-moon-styled circle edged with compass-like points. With a blinding flash, the staff split into two, hovering inches in front of Bob and Kate. They reached out and each wrapped a hand around the staff before them. There was a tingling in their hands as the light faded and they were left, once again, standing in the dim book store.

Bob examined his staff, which had lengthened slightly. It still had the sun and moon motif, but it was a waxing moon, taking up half of the face. The sun half was lined with tiny points. The staff itself was a dark green, the face a dark silvery gray. Kate's was shorter, brighter green and silver, and the moon on hers reversed. It was waning, and the sun's points were on the other side of the face.

Billy launched himself from Kate's shoulder and landed on the book, picking it up in his tiny clawed feet. That was when they noticed there was not one book, but two, each a green to match their staffs. "But… isn't there only one deck of cards?" Kate asked, taking her book.

"But there are two of you," Billy replied in a way that made it seem like he was trying to teach advanced calculus to a third-grader. "So, there should be two books." As he spoke, their staffs glowed slightly and began to shrink rapidly, until they were the size of very small skeleton keys.

"So," Billy continued, flying over to land on Kate's shoulder. "You should go look for some cards."

Kate and Bob were so caught off guard by everything that had happened that they took their books and walked right out of the store, staring at the keys in their hands.

"Okay, so, seriously, I thought the Sakura cards were all fictional. I mean, hell, there was a TV show about them!" Bob burst out once they were outside the store.

"Yeah, I mean, I always thought so too. But… I guess not."

"What about your cards, Kate?"

"Cards?" Billy's long neck swiveled and he stared at her as he fluttered laboriously alongside them. "What?"

"My deck…" Kate stopped for a second and then ran hurriedly to the car. "I have a deck of Clow Cards!" Bob unlocked the doors, and Kate dove in head first, returning triumphantly with a small plastic box modeled after the Clow book from the show. "Se-" She opened it, and the hollowed-out space inside was empty. And now that she looked at it, it really didn't look the same at all. In fact, it was so completely different, Kate couldn't find any hint of Clow about it.

Billy caught up last of all, and looked at the plastic box in Kate's disbelieving hands. "So what is this supposed to be?"

"An error in space-time," Bob said with a shrug. "What a coincidence. As soon as they exist in real life, they cease being fictional."

Billy landed on Kate's head and looked at Bob. "There is no coincidence. There is onl—"

"Only _hitsuzen_," Kate completed. "Yeah, I know."

Bob made a face. "And what is that again?"

"You don't read _XXXholic_, so you wouldn't know. 'Hitsuzen' is the belief that there is no coincidence, and that everything happens for a reason. CLAMP talks about it a lot through Yuuko in _XXXholic_. But you've only read _Tsubasa_, so you don't know the other side of the story."

As they spoke, the sky began to cloud over quickly, and large drops of rain fell in rapidly increasing intensity. The two hurried into the car, with Billy sitting with Kate in the passenger seat. They frowned at the rain around them, now falling in thick, heavy sheets that practically nullified visibility. Bob was a little puzzled. "You know, normally I like rain, but…"

"This one is strange," Kate finished. "Yeah."

"That's because it's a Sakura Card," Billy supplemented with a sigh. "Gosh, you two really are slow."

"Well, if you're so smart, why not tell us what to do about it?" Bob asked.

"Capture it, of course."

"How can we do that?" Kate was in despair as she looked at her little key, still clutched in her hand. "We have nothing to combat The Rain with!"

Billy blinked slowly in turtle fashion. "How do you know which card it is?"

"I'll tell you that once you tell me how we can fight a card when we have nothing to fight it with!" Kate stormed. She was getting angry and frustrated now, and that didn't bode well for anyone.

Bob looked at his book as this went on, examining the cover and the tiny key lock. He opened it, and stared at the inside. "Kate, look. I have a card." He held it up for her to look at, and Kate stopped yelling at Billy immediately to look at it.

"The Shield," she said slowly, looking at the way the card had been changed. It was no longer pink, but rather a dark green and gray, with a sun at the top and a moon at the bottom of the card, and the name scrawled in very pale silver across a straight box just above the moon.

"You should have one too, you know," Billy said. "If you'd stopped complaining to listen to me, I could have told you that."

Kate hurried to open her book, looking at the card that fell out onto her lap. "I have The Jump." She immediately frowned in thought. "The Shield and Jump…. Shield and Jump…"

Bob watched her think it over as the rain got heavier and heavier.

Suddenly, Kate grinned. "Ha! I've got it!"

Billy tried to roll his eyes and found that turtles don't have roll-able eyes. So he settled for a sigh. "And…?"

"Bob, you use the shield to trap The Rain, and I can jump up to it and seal it away!"

Bob shrugged. "If you think that'll work, sure. I don't know how this stuff goes."

Billy sighed again. "It won't work. I bet you it'll fail."

Kate tapped the top of his head very lightly, making the tiny thing hit her shoulder with enough force to shut the small Billy up. "Let's try it."

They stepped out of the car into the rain, which was gathering in puddles around their ankles by this time in the badly-drained parking lot.

"So where is it?" Bob called through the water to Kate.

"It'll be a small cloud, obviously lower to the ground than anything else!" Kate responded, looking at her key again. "How do I use this, Billy?"

"Well, obviously you have to release the seal on it." Billy called from Kate's hood, where he had taken refuge from the battering rain.

"Um…."

Bob threw together a quick rhyme in his head, hoping that it would be enough to release whatever it was Billy was trying to get them to release. "Little key of moon and sun, lend your power to this one. I need your seal to be undone!" The key glowed brightly as it expanded into its staff shape, and Bob stared at it for a second. "Oh man, I'm stuck using that gay-ass rhyme now, aren't I?"

Billy peered out from his hiding spot and made a turtle-y sort of grin. "You're the one that said it. Oh, how I revel in your misery."

Meanwhile, Kate was repeating Bob's rhyme with no luck. "Why isn't it working for me?"

"It's because it's the spell that tunes your staff to your own magical essence. If you use someone else's spell, it doesn't work." Billy adopted a superior look. "So you need to think of your own."

"Well, while you do that, I'll try and find the card." Bob looked around, staring up at the thick clouds above the parking lot.

Kate wracked her brains for some words that rhymed and a way to fit them together. "Little key of dark and light, lend me your strength to aid my plight! Release the seal that binds your might!" Her staff extended and grew, and once more she examined it for several moments before turning her eyes skyward and also searching for The Rain.

It was Billy, though, who called out, pointing with a wing to a small dense cloud. "There!"

Kate spun as Bob threw his card into the air above his head, swinging his staff up to point to it with the topmost of the compass-like sun spikes. "Shield!" It was just a few seconds, and then...

Nothing happened and the card hung suspended in a faintly glowing circle before it fell back into his hand. "Oh, come on! Rhymes for the cards, too?"

"Try just asking the card to release its power for you," Kate called over, her staff pointing upwards as she tracked the movement of the Rain's cloud. "They should accept you now that the staff has recognized your power, I think. The rhyme just makes it easier."

"Ugh, okay. Let's see..."

"Don't take too long, we'll float away soon boy..." Billy's small voice cut through the thunder of the rain hitting the every-growing flood that was rising up around their shins now.

"Shut your dirty mouth, you jerk. Card of power, hear my plea: reveal your true form to me! Shield!" Bob threw the Shield upwards again, and the glowing circle of light caught it once more, mimicking the pattern that was on the covers of their books. The card disappeared into a silvery mist, swirling quickly upwards to encircle the little cloud that was pouring out rain. It hastily changed shape into a very small girl decorated with raindrops. She pouted angrily, and turned back into a cloud, hurling rain water at the shield that surrounded her. The Shield, in turn, flared brightly as the intensity of the Rain increased. "You might want to hurry up," Bob said, watching the two cards struggle against each other. "I'm not sure how long the Shield can stand up against this."

Kate looked at her card, a lighter green than Bob's, and threw it out in front of her. Her own circle snagged it and it floated steadily in the air. "Awaken and lend me your power!" Bringing her staff up above her head, Kate slammed the face of the staff down onto the card. "Jump!" Tiny iridescent wings appeared on her feet, and Kate crouched. With all the force she could muster, she sprang into the air, much higher than intended, and came hurtling back down to earth with a splash, landing on her hands and feet.

"Are you okay?" Bob asked, trying not to laugh.

Kate crouched again as she replied. "Just misjudged the strength of my jump. Here we go!" She jumped again, a few feet above the silvery dome that The Rain was still pounding away at. As she descended again, she brought her staff out in front of her, pointing it at The Rain. "Return to the form you were meant to be! Rain!"

The Rain changed back into a little girl, and she grinned wryly as she slowly dissolved into a misty sort of vapor and formed a card that fluttered slowly down as Kate landed on one knee. She reached up for it and caught the card, looking at it. Bob sauntered over as the rain slowed to a stop almost immediately, holding his staff like he'd been born with it.

"Hey, Billy," Kate asked. The turtle climbed slowly up out of her hood and onto her shoulder, looking slightly dazed. It had been a hard landing for him. "Sakura had to change the cards one by one after she captured them all, right?" she asked, tilting her head to look at him.

"Yes, that's what happened."

"So why have our cards already changed?"

"When Sakura began capturing the cards, she was still only in fourth grade. She was young, and most of her latent magical talent was still dormant in her body. You two, who are much older and wiser about the ways of the world, have much more magic coursing through you than she did when she began. It is second nature for you, then, to change the cards immediately." Billy sighed.

They both blinked. "So, my magical abilities are acting on their own by doing this?" Bob asked. "I'm not sure I like that."

Billy attempted another eye-roll and failed miserably. "Don't mistake me, boy-"

"My name is Bob."

"Don't mistake me, _Bob_. Your lungs go on breathing in and out while you focus on doing other things, don't they? Your heart beats on its own. It's as simple as that: a natural reaction. Your magic will increase every time you find a card and bring it under control. But your inherent magic is different from that of the cards, and so, like most natural things, it forces the cards to conform with your magic so that you can better control them and not have some sort of backlash if something goes wrong. However, it will still leave you drained." Billy's tone became slightly smug. "Since you are so unused to your powers working in this way, your body will take some time to adjust. You'll be tired for a while."

Kate was placing The Rain in her book and pretended not to hear this last part. "I have a pen in the car, I'll write my name on it on the way home."

They headed back to the car, still soaked from the rain, and sat down without a word. It was a silent ride back to the apartment that Kate shared with Patrick, and she stepped out of the car with nothing more than a small wave and a tired, wary smile. Bob returned the gesture, finding himself as weary as if he had just completed a mental triathlon. It seemed that some of what Billy had said was true. He was exhausted suddenly, and the drive home was a long eternity that ended in him falling quietly asleep on his couch.


	3. 2 Billy Explains kind of

Chapter 2

When Bob awoke next, he found that it was early afternoon and his phone had been ringing incessantly for the past ten minutes. It took a moment, but he remembered that it was Sunday, and he had nowhere especially important to be. The cheerful melody that his phone was playing informed him it was Corey calling, and when it remained silent for a full minute, Bob got up to go shower. It was muggy out, being late spring, and he hadn't turned the air conditioning on before he'd passed out the evening before. It was only slightly disconcerting to realize that he'd slept for twenty hours and still felt sluggish. But that was nothing strange, really. He'd slept for longer. As he dressed and headed for the kitchen, he tripped on something.

It was the book.

With a blink, he picked it up, and found his 'key' under it. He scooped that up as well and wandered into the kitchen to prepare something to eat. He sat at the table, opened the book, and pulled out the card inside. Kate had said something about writing her name on the card…

With a jerk, Bob shook himself out of the thoughtful trance he'd been in. No, he thought. No, it was indeed an incredibly odd situation, but he'd certainly had stranger dreams, and hadn't his life been pretty boring until now? Well, not that he minded boring. Boring had its merits. But this was interesting, this blend of fiction and reality.

His phone began to chime in the other room, but this time it was a message. He knew it was Kate, with a certainty that he'd had before this, but had never quite realized it was there. He shrugged it off and went to grab his phone, his quest for food completely forgotten.

_Are you awake yet?_ she'd asked.

Yes, he replied simply.

Her response came almost immediately._ I think we need to talk when I get off work._

Bob responded in the positive, and she invited him to head up for some food. His stomach growled angrily at him, and he accepted readily.

Bob paused at the door as he left, and collected the book and the key. Then he was out the door.

Kate had only one table when he arrived at Pizza Hut, and it was obvious they were getting ready to leave. She gestured him to a booth on the other side of the dining room from them, taking an order on the phone and cashing a customer out at the carry-out counter at the same time. After a few minutes, once her table was gone and cleaned, she came out to him with a cup of mountain dew and a basket of bread sticks. "Extra," she said by way of explanation. "What do you want?"

"Meat-lovers?" Bob asked hopefully.

"I'll make a medium, because I'll probably munch on it some, too."

"I figured."

And then she was gone again, bustling into the back of the store to make his pizza. The store's phone rang a few times, and he heard her talking to herself as she came up front to answer it. Another five minutes later, she was back out with a cup of water for herself and two straws. Bob took one, stripped it, and began to play with the wrapper. "Slow day?" he asked.

"Would you believe that this is the busiest we've been all day?"

Bob looked around for a second, though no one was in the store but the manager, who was up front writing something. "Yeah, seems like one of those days."

Kate sighed and slumped forward on the table, propping her chin up on her folded arms. "I'm not making anything today, and I could be at home taking a nap. This is stupid…"

"Didn't sleep well?"

"I had to be here at ten. I barely managed to shower last night before I passed out around eight-thirty," Kate explained. She sat up a little as her manager came out and pulled up a chair to the edge of the booth. Kate liked this one the best of all her managers. Alyssa was barely 21, and she had started at the store as a waitress a few years ago. She was cheerful and funny, and Bob had no objections to her joining them.

"Is that yours in the oven?" she asked as she sat down.

Kate yawned widely. "Yeah. I figured it's not like we're doing any business anyway, why not just make a medium? They'll just throw it away at the end of the night."

Alyssa shrugged. "That's fine, I was just wondering."

The made small chat for a few minutes, and then the phone rang again. Alyssa got up to answer it, leaving Kate and Bob alone again. They were quiet for a while, with Kate half-dozing on her arms and Bob doodling half-heartedly on a napkin. Then the door alarm went off, a loud, long beep that made Kate jump up and look around. But it was just another waitress coming in to relieve Kate. With a small sigh, she pulled a meager wad of dollar bills from her apron and went up front, taking their cups with her.

Kate returned shortly, a pizza box in her hands and her purse and large pink bag on her shoulder. "Ready?"

Bob stood and blinked. "No silverware?"

Kate headed for the door. "Nope, we were so dead I got all my side work done really early. It's not like there was much to do, I barely made fifteen dollars today." She dropped her pink bag on the floor of the car and her purse went on top of it as she slid into the passenger seat. There was a muffled cry from the bag, and Kate jumped suddenly for it, the pizza on her lap hindering her efforts. "Oh no! I'm so sorry, Billy, I forgot you were there!" She sat up clutching Billy and her DSi, which he had apparently been sitting in her bag playing as she had worked.

"That's three times now that you've done that," the turtle said with a tone of hurt dignity.

Kate rolled her eyes as she unfolded the DSi for him to sit on the box and play. Bob glanced over as they pulled out of the parking lot. "He plays DS?"

"Pictoimage is the only game he can really manage, because the others make him reach between the buttons and he can't spread himself that far." Kate lightly stroked the top of Billy's head as he huffed over the images he was guessing.

They stopped for Kate to get some food from Wawa, and then drove in comfortable silence to Bob's apartment. When they arrived, Kate kicked off her shoes and flopped on the couch in a heap. Bob sat down on the other end, and Billy carried Kate's DSi to the middle cushion and made himself comfortable. There was silence for a few minutes, and then they turned to look at each other.

"Have you written your name on the card yet?" Kate asked.

"No. Should I have?"

"It basically makes them irrefutably yours."

Billy looked up. "Not really. You do that when the cards aren't yours to begin with. Sakura had to write her name on the Clow Cards when she captured them because they were still technically Clow's. You two, since you change them as you capture them, don't have that problem."

Kate heaved a heavy sigh at this, though no one could really tell if it was relief or something else. When she looked at Bob again, her eyes were troubled and shining a bit more than they normally did. "What are we going to do about this, Bob?" she asked him desperately.

Bob had often seen Kate at wit's end and ready to cry, but that was frustration. This was something else: a mix of fear, surprise, confusion, and, behind it all, a deep need for something more interesting in her life. He usually had a good idea of how to calm her down and managed to do that in an admirably short amount of time. But this time, he had no clue. He genuinely didn't know what to say.

"I can't keep this from Patrick for long, and I'm sure Caryn will start to suspect something. Especially if some of the cards target us, and I know the aggressive ones will." Kate wrung her hands nervously as she spoke. "I don't want anyone else involved in this. People we're close to are in the most danger."

Bob turned to Billy. "What if I just stopped?"

"Stopped what?" Billy looked up at him with as much interest as can be described by a face with no moveable features.

"Stopped capturing cards. What if I just said, 'Forget it, I'm not doing this anymore.'"

"Nothing would happen," Billy said simply. "…To you, at any rate. At least, in terms of giving anything up. You'd keep your staff and the cards you've changed. But the free cards would always know who you were, and they would follow you until Kate had caught them all. They would hurt the people you care about in order to antagonize you."

Bob frowned in thought and stroked his beard slowly. Kate was sitting very still with her head hanging low. The only part of her moving was her hands, wringing and twisting and toying fretfully with each other. After a full minute of tense silence, Bob spoke again. "But I never ag-"

"You initiated a contract when I was formed," Billy interrupted. "Have you forgotten already?"

"It was a contract under duress!"

"Magic does not obey your judicial laws, Bob." Billy was staring at him in that curious turtle way. "If you choose to no longer capture the cards, you will be chased until Kate captures the rest. And then you will have to give her your cards eventually, so that she can be the complete master."

Kate looked up at them slowly. "Bob, I can do it. I just have to tell Patrick, so he can be prepared in case something happens." She put on one of her fake, cheerful smiles. "Don't worry about it."

"No, I've started this, I'll finish it." Bob had suddenly made up his mind. He was stubborn, and would see this ordeal through to the end.

"Then perhaps I should warn you now that all the cards will act differently from each other. Certain ones are aggressive, such as Firey and the Arrow, and they will seek to harm you; others are merely defensive, like the Time, and will only do what they know how. And some are passive, and may even seek to be sealed. The cards enjoy their freedom, but they crave a new master."

"It's so surreal," Kate muttered, shaking her head as she dug into her bag and pulled out the book. "I know these cards, these traits. It's all familiar to me, but I'm not a Cardcaptor." The Jump and Rain sat quiescently in her hand, though they seemed warm to the touch.

"Well, for better or worse you are now. And so am I. We just have to make the best of it."

"Yes, you promised yesterday to tell me exactly how you know these things," Billy said carefully, studying Kate with his tiny brown eyes.

"It's, well... it's complicated. I don't really know how to explain. Are you familiar with the multiple-universe theory?"

"Where reality branches off in every possible direction with every possible choice. Yes, I have knowledge of it. Remember," Billy sighed the world-weary sigh that perhaps only a teenager can perfect, "I was born of your minds. I will know some of the things you do."

"Well, before you came along... There was a TV show when I was younger, called Cardcaptor Sakura."

"A documentary? How fascinating."

"No, Billy." Bob cut in, noticing Kate's agitation. "It was a cartoon. Something completely fictional, based on a comic book."

The turtle was silent as Kate went on. "It's always been one of my favorites. I even bought my own copy of the Clow Cards, and I learned to read tarot with them. But that's the thing, they were always fictional. And then when Bob and I found Sakura's book in the book store..."

"...Something that, to us, had been nothing more than an amusing television show was made real," finished Bob.

Billy was nonplussed. "I utterly fail to see your problem, really."

"It's not supposed to exist here!" Kate was nearly frantic now. Bob realized that this is what had been really bothering her. "There isn't magic in this world, we don't have things like the Clow Cards. There's no magic circles or spells that rhyme, freak occurrences don't get chalked up to the magician down the street!"

"They do now."

Kate froze, and even Bob was a little surprised.

"Not only do the Clow Cards exist, but they have brought their magic with them. Whether that serves to aid or hinder your efforts has yet to be seen, but somehow I don't think it will make your lives easier. However, that doesn't mean that everything is going to fall apart around you." Billy's mouth opened slowly here and snapped shut with a hiss, startlingly turtle-ish behavior in the middle of such a speech. "Existence in general tends to make strange things fit in somehow. Even if these things would have been so out of place previously, your world has made room and is adjusting. In small ways, magic is becoming real here."

Bob had a sudden thought. "You mean all those people who call themselves witches or whatever and really are just totally ignorant of themselves are going to be able to cast curses and stuff? That sounds like a terrible idea."

"That was kind of cruel. I know what you meant, but taken at face value that was really just a mean thing to say." Kate frowned.

"It wasn't meant for face-value."

"True."

Billy endeavored again to roll his eyes, and settled with a sigh. "I suppose that will do for the time being. Now, what is your plan?"

Bob's look would have frozen boiling water. "Plan?"

"Your plan to capture the cards. How are you going to lure them out and seal them?"

"We're not." Bob and Billy both turned to look at Kate, who was staring hard at some point in the middle distance. "We let them come to us. The aggressive cards will seek us out eventually, and the other ones will simply manifest as strange occurrences and we can't fail to notice those." She looked at Billy. "Right?"

The turtle blinked slowly in a bored manner and tried to shrug his shoulders, but found that the joints didn't move that way. "It's better than having no plan at all... though not by much."

"All right, listen you little depressed... thing." Bob frowned at the turtle. "We're trying. Until we know more, and have collected more cards, we won't have any sort of advantage over the ones that are still loose. So I think that for right now, waiting for the cards to show themselves is as good a plan as any."

Billy didn't respond, only pulled himself into his shell a bit with a yawn. Things went quiet for a while after that, and Bob took Kate home.

Once she was in the apartment again, Kate set about making dinner. It was an easy night, just boxed macaroni mixed with ground beef. It was one of hers and Patrick's favorites and since it was so simple to make, she fell into her usual comfort-hobby: baking.

The sugar cookie dough almost made itself while Kate sank deeper and deeper into her own thoughts, rolling out the dough and cutting it into small cookies shaped like various tree blossoms. They baked in batches as she prepared the next trays, her hands moving automatically while the delicious smell of baking cookies filled the air in the apartment. Patrick returned home to find dinner waiting on the stove and about three dozen cookies piled carefully in tins and on plates around the kitchen.

"You've been busy," he said carefully, noticing that Kate seemed to be a bit spacey today.

"I've been...distracted."

Patrick wandered into the bedroom to change out of his work clothes while Kate began to stack the dirty dishes in the sink. "Are you feeling better?" he called back to her.

"What? Why, did I say I didn't feel good?"

"Last night you slept like a dead person for almost twelve hours. You only do that when you're sick."

"Well, yeah. I guess so."

He came back in in jeans and a tee shirt and hugged Kate after she'd taken off her floury apron. "Good, I'm glad you're better." He kissed the top of her head and looked over her shoulder to the pot on the stove. "Dinner is ready?"

"Sure is! Mac and Cheese and Beef. I've got some rolls here, too. I was going to make garlic bread but I didn't want to bake the bread and the cookies together. You get yourself a bowl, the bread will only take a few minutes."

As they settled down at the table to eat, Kate glanced at all the cookies. "I honestly didn't think I'd made that many. I guess I'll bring some with us to Bob's tomorrow. Every one can eat them at D&D."

"Are you going to frost them at all?" Patrick asked around a mouthful of food.

Kate shrugged as she ate. "I thought about it, but that last batch of dough is a little sweeter than usual, I think I wasn't paying attention when I measured out the sugar. They don't really need any frosting."

Patrick nodded and that was that. They spent the night peacefully playing video games and reading, and when Kate lay down for bed that night she thought nothing of the niggling feeling in the back of her head, reminding her that there was something she was missing.

Bob was usually up considerably later that Kate, and that was the case now. Billy sat dozing gently on the tangle of blankets on his bed as Bob sat at his computer.

"No one?" he muttered to himself. "Nothing at all... not even fanfiction remains. Crossovers that contained it are gone..." Bob scrolled and clicked randomly across the internet, looking for some sign of the Cardcaptor Sakura series. "Billy is right. CLAMP hasn't even made it... their own website is missing it." He leaned backwards in the chair and folded his arms across his chest, eyes closing in a thoughtful frown. "So if it never existed now, what happened to take it from the then where it was fiction? And why can we remember something that only just came into existence otherwise?"


End file.
